


In the Dark of the Night

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Gen, post Blackest Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 02:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5188883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping the living dead, how do you cope?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Dark of the Night

They'd sealed the doors and windows and covered the mirrors, on edge for a round two that never came. Once the news had confirmed that the Black Lanterns were gone for good, the Rogues had scattered, gone off to separate parts of the hideout to lick their wounds and reassess what they knew about mortality. 

Len locked the door behind him, bottle of whiskey untouched on his bed. He'd drink it, all of it and more before the night was through, but for now...the mattress sagged beneath him, and Captain Cold sagged right along with it, his face in his hands. He'd already mourned Lisa, the rational part of him screamed, but what he wept for now wasn't the revenge-starved woman who'd died. 

Len mourned for the little girl that clutched his hand tight as they snuck into the television store to watch the Winter Olympics. He mourned the teenager that mixed her foundations together to make something that could pass as his skin tone, covering his black eyes and bruised cheeks. He mourned his sister, the baby swaddled in his mother's arms that he'd sworn to protect for his entire life the first time he saw her. 

He mourned the person he'd loved most in the world, the person he'd failed. 

Axel didn't have a safe spot to hide. The older men had reclaimed their rooms when they came back, leaving him with a cot in a lean-to made of bedsheets in a corner of what passed as the living room. Not that he was complaining, as they very much could have just killed him and been done with it when they came back. 

He clamped his hands over his mouth, but the soft whines leaked through his fingers. He'd almost died. Almost, almost. He could have been zombified, splattered with whatever muck was in James' undead super soaker. He could have had his heart ripped out. He could have, could have 

Been shoved into a pit and left to die. 

Axel squeezes his eyes shut, his tears loosening the spirit gum that kept his mask secured to his face. Owen was dead. Owen was gone. Owen was, was 

The sob wrenches its way out of his body. He'd liked Owen. The guy was fun to mess with, and didn't have a clue what was going on half the time. The kind of person that made him feel like, hey, maybe there was someone else out there who knew what the weight of a legacy felt like. Evan took to the suit, the name, the schtick like he was born for it. He wasn't much older than Owen, but he was accepted faster, easier. Owen, he and Axel were the sore thumbs here. In time, they probably could have been more than just allies. They could have been real friends. 

But that will never happen now, because Owen is gone. 

Everyone forgets that Mick had lived with monks. It was too easy to call him a hothead, to bait him into fighting. To be so sure of his lack of self-control that he's treated more like an afterthought than a real player in the field. 

He lights a candle for them. 

Just one. It's not even very big, just a simple white one he'd picked up while he was out one day. It smelled like sandalwood, and it reminded him of better times and better places with better people. Mick isn't a praying man, so he remembers instead. 

Lisa's perfume and Roscoe's haughty way of talking. Roy's awful paintings and James' laugh. Sam's ego and Digger's complete lack of anything resembling shame or dignity. Other people he'd lost along the way, friends, family. 

Mick isn't sure where everyone ended up, if they ended up anywhere at all. If the afterlife he'd encountered once hadn't been a particularly bad nightmare. But he hopes they're happy, regardless. 

The sound of bottles clinking together drew Mark out of his rain-entranced reverie. When he turned towards the noise, he found Evan, leaning against the door frame, a pair of longnecks clutched in one hand. 

"Not s'pposed to have the window open." He said, voice rough. Mark half-suspected that neither of those beers were for him, until Evan moved from the doorway to the bookcase, passing him a bottle as he went. "Even if the news says those bleeding things are gone, it's better not ta take chances." Evan isn't quite three sheets to the wind, but he's close enough. 

"I want to think that it means they're at peace." Mark blurts out, focusing less on Evan or his own words, and more on the bottle. It was so cool, so smooth. It made him glad he'd taken off his gloves. "Lisa wasn't. She and Roscoe could never be. And James, he never even got a funeral, did he? Digger had his son to think of, and Roy? Murdered. Sam should have been. They say dying with regrets makes a soul restless but, there weren't any souls there." Evan pulled his mouth off his own beer, quirking a brow. 

"What're you on about?" His expression changes, tightens as he looks at Mark's face, and he knows before the other man gets his words out. 

"Clyde, Evan. Josh. My brother, my son. They're, do you think? At peace, wherever it is you go once you're gone?" 

Evan could say so much, about how he kept his eyes peeled every second they were out there. For the people he'd killed in his time. For his parents. For anyone who'd shuffled off the mortal coil because of him, ready and revved for revenge, but who'd he get? Sam bloody Scudder, a man whose work he knew intimately but whose life? Ultimately, it meant nothing to him. He was Mirror Master now, not some ghastly ghoul. 

"Maybe they're at peace. Maybe they were just busy." He's bad at this, comfort. It's not in his skill set, especially not when he's hammered. "Your son, his mama is dead too, right?" Mark's stony silence says it all. "She probably just didn' wanna let him go again any time soon, not when they'd finally found each other, right?" 

Mark finally stops clutching the bottle hard enough to shatter it and uncaps it, taking a healthy swig. "Yeah...and Clyde was never the fighting type. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you." His voice was raw, as though the words themselves were packed with more meaning than their entire conversation had been. Evan gave a two-fingered salute, then staggered out of the room. 

Morning finds them all in the little kitchen, some with red eyes, others with pounding headaches. They were all quiet, until Len finished his first cup of coffee.

“News says the Flash is back.  _The_  Flash.” Mick and Mark grin, while Axel and Evan exchange a confused glance. “Two hours from now, we’re gonna play welcome wagon. Be ready.” 

One of his knees makes a sharp popping sound as he stands, but they pretend not to notice. They’re decent men, his Rogues. Crooks he’d trust with his life. Outwardly, Len’s expression doesn’t change. But he can feel it deep inside.

By nature, morning sheds light on all things. A new day had dawned, and ready or not, it was time they faced it.

The morning after the apocalypse was a good day for crime.


End file.
